Joe Keatinge

The brave hero. The wicked villain. These archetypes, and the tales of their struggles, lie at the heart of the comic book medium, providing the basis for many of our favorite stories. While some may scoff at these aspirational stories, we know that they can be empowering, uplifting, and even inspiring. That's often especially true when the hero at the heart of the story is a woman.

When women slay monsters, the stories are never just about protecting the kingdom and preserving the status quo. When women slay monsters, they challenge their own oppression, they overturn expectations, and they seize control of the future. When women slay monsters, they change the world. These are some of our favorite comic book stories that celebrate that idea.

Throughout its run, Shutter has delighted in pushing the boundaries of comics. Leila Del Duca turned her pen to pastiches of everyone from Hergé to Winsor McCay to Richard Scarry. Owen Gieni separated his colors out into cyan, magenta and yellow to tell three stories on a single page. One memorable sequence depicted the creation of a single panel of the comic itself, from Joe Keatinge's script to final lettered product, before being printed, delivered, and finally read by someone in a coffee shop.

By those standards, the storytelling in issue #23 is almost disappointingly conventional. It's the most straightforward the comic has been since it debuted. Since the very first issue, in fact. Come to think of it, doesn't that cover look a little familiar?

Professional wrestling has a lot in common with comic books. Up front, both feature spandex-clad larger-than-life heroes fighting despicable baddies, sometimes for an ultimate prize that declares them the most powerful. Behind the scenes, both businesses have a tendency to chew people up and spit them out, without much care for what they become.

Image Comics's Ringside follows the darker side of professional wrestling, and ComicsAlliance chatted to writer Joe Keatinge and artist Nick Barber about Ringside's universal themes of unrelenting passion, their exploration of the underbelly of professional wrestling, and the series' focus on LGBT characters.

From Parts Unknown is a comics anthology about pro wrestling, which is being funded by a newly-launched Kickstarter campaign. The project is the brainchild of writer G. Brett Williams and former Marvel editor Lauren Sankovitch, and features work by professional wrestler Christopher Daniels, filmmakers Jen and Sylvia Soska, and comics creators including Joe Keatinge, Ed Luce, and Jason Latour. The cover features a painting by WWE's favorite artist Rob Schamberger.

WrestleMania was this past weekend, and outside of perhaps the infamous "Attitude Era" of the late-'90s, it's never been more socially acceptable to proudly admit that you love the King of Sports, professional wrestling. The Rock is the biggest star in Hollywood, the Total Divas are taking over E, and John Cena is viral meme superstar; wrestling has officially broken through to the mainstream again.

It's also never been a better time for comics about professional wrestling, a far cry from the days of the old WCW comic or the weird one where Chyna is a bodyguard in her spare time. We've assembled a list of five of the best independent comics about wrestling, if you're still in the mood for some pro-graps after watching The Granddaddy of Them All.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice is in theaters worldwide right now, and whether you loved or hated it, it's certainly an interesting take on The Caped Crusader and The Man of Tomorrow.

A great many independent comics have taken the core ideas of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and other iconic characters and given them a unique spin that could only be explored outside the confines of DC Comics mainstream continuity. If you're looking for superhero stories with a bit of an edge, we've got five of the best to recommend to you.

With Fables having just wrapped up after 13 years of combining fantasy characters and creatures with a more-or-less real world setting, there's no better time to pick up Shutter. Joe Keatinge and Leila del Duca's comic charts Kate Kristopher's reluctant journey through a world of ghost ninjas, fire-breathing Victorian robots and crocodiles in adorable bell-boy jackets, as she tries to uncover the mystery of her family's past – and save her own behind from the aforementioned creatures.

Image Comics held its now traditional pre-San Diego one-day show on Thursday at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and unveiled an impressive roster of new titles for the coming year that includes new work by familiar names such as Warren Ellis, Jason Aaron and Gail Simone; plus an encouraging number of relative newcomers and unknowns. Check out our rundown of all the news and announcements.

Since the first issue hit stands earlier this year, Joe Keatinge and Leila del Duca's Shutter has established itself as one of Image's most popular new titles. The tale of Kate Kristopher, a world-famous ex-explorer who gets embroiled in all manner of mystery and adventure, it's been winning over readers with its idiosyncratic blend of science fiction, urban fantasy, and good old-fashioned derring do.

With the first paperback collection released this week, ComicsAlliance sat down with the series' creators to talk about developing the world's characters, the story so far, and pushing the limits of their self-created reality.

If there's one problem that we as comics readers all share, it's that we just have too much money. Sure, we keep trying to give it to publishers and creators, but sometimes there just aren't enough comics to buy, and that's why we always need more great books out there to pick up. Fortunately, the good folks over at Comixology are doing their best to make that as easy as possible, and this week, those efforts are taking the form of the Image Comics "New Hits" Sale.

A ton of great new Image books like Southern Bastards, The Wicked + The Divine, Velvet, Burn the Orphanage and more have seen their first few issues dropped down to 99 cents each, and on top of that, there's a bundle of 20 first issues for just fifteen bucks.

Rogues' Gallery

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